A fitting method for headphones to compensate individual hearing impairments

Hannah Baumgartner; Arne Schulz; Andreas Hein; Inga Holube; Tobias Herzke

3d International ICST Conference on Pervasive Computing Technologies for Healthcare

Research Article

A fitting method for headphones to compensate individual hearing impairments

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@INPROCEEDINGS{10.4108/ICST.PERVASIVEHEALTH2009.5991,
    author={Hannah Baumgartner and Arne Schulz and Andreas Hein and Inga Holube and Tobias Herzke},
    title={A fitting method for headphones to compensate individual hearing impairments},
    proceedings={3d International ICST Conference on Pervasive Computing Technologies for Healthcare},
    proceedings_a={PERVASIVEHEALTH},
    year={2009},
    month={8},
    keywords={Auditory system Deafness Dynamic range Frequency Headphones Hearing aids Information technology Signal design Signal processing algorithms TV},
    doi={10.4108/ICST.PERVASIVEHEALTH2009.5991}
}

Hannah Baumgartner
Arne Schulz
Andreas Hein
Inga Holube
Tobias Herzke
Year: 2009
A fitting method for headphones to compensate individual hearing impairments
PERVASIVEHEALTH
ICST
DOI: 10.4108/ICST.PERVASIVEHEALTH2009.5991

Hannah Baumgartner¹^,*, Arne Schulz¹^,*, Andreas Hein¹^,*, Inga Holube²^,*, Tobias Herzke³^,*

1: OFFIS - Institute for Information Technology, 26121 Oldenburg, Germany
2: Fachhochschule OOW, 26121 Oldenburg, Germany
3: HoerTech GmbH, 26129 Oldenburg, Germany

*Contact email: hannah.baumgartner@offis.de, arne.schulz@offis.de, andreas.hein@offis.de, inga.holube@fh-oow.de, t.herzke@hoertech.de

Abstract

Sensorineural hearing loss often results in altered loudness perception and a smaller perceivable dynamic range. To compensate sensorineural hearing loss it is necessary to fit an individual compressive gain. Fitting of hearing aids is usually done by professionals together with the hearing aid user. To give the users of TV-headsets the possibility to adjust not only the volume of the acoustic signal but also the dynamics, three different versions of interactive self-fitting systems were designed and evaluated. The user tests were performed with 11 subjects with mild to moderate hearing loss. The results were evaluated with regard to benefit in quailty, loudness perception and speech intelligibility.

Keywords: Auditory system Deafness Dynamic range Frequency Headphones Hearing aids Information technology Signal design Signal processing algorithms TV

Published: 2009-08-04

: http://dx.doi.org/10.4108/ICST.PERVASIVEHEALTH2009.5991